Not just a predator: Wolves bring a suprising ecological recovery to Yellowstone

Boston Globe ^ | 9/30/2003 | Nicholas Thompson

[presidio9]

LAMAR VALLEY, YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK -- It's a morning of freezing rain in the valley and a pack of wolves is roaming around Black Tail Creek. A few pups gnaw on an old elk carcass while some adults scout the nearby valleys for prey. Not far away, a few elk have sensed the impending danger and are dashing about. To the tourists in the park, the prospect of a wolf attacking an elk is riveting. To the biologists staring into their binoculars, the real action is taking place in Black Tail Creek itself.

[LiteKeeper]

YEC INTREP

[PeterPrinciple]

Almost wherever they exist, beavers create biological diversity when they build pools of slow-moving water around their dams. These pools create habitat for otters, muskrats, insects, moose, and many bird species.


What is the Robert Heinlein quote on beavers building a dam???

[ko_kyi]

Great work, Yellowstone. Now if only the caldera doesn't explode, killing all life within 500 miles, the wolves will be just dandy.

[upcountryhorseman]

No mention was made of the wolves killing calves
because they are easier prey.

[cake_crumb]

The belong there. People hate them. That doesn't mean they don't belong there. They're part of the ecosystem. . I have never understood the virulent hatred people have for wolves while simultaneously fawning over dusgusting and much more destrctive coyotes.

[PatrickHenry]

There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love Nature" while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled 'Nature.'" The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are *not* part of "Nature" - but beavers and their dams *are*. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers' purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the "Naturist" reveals his hatred for his own race - i.e., his own self-hatred.
-- Robert Heinlein

[Skooz]

Nice story. Thanks for posting it,.

Almost everything written or said by the anti-wolf crowd is a bunch of crap.

[DoughtyOne]

I don't have a problem with the wolves being re-introduced to Jellystone, but I do chuckle at some of the commentary seeking to justify it. Even if true, some of this just leaves me unimpressed.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

I see dead coyotes laying by the road on a weekly basis. Even hear them from time to time. Hate the things - mercifully, my road is loaded with big dogs, so they don't hang around on my street.

[presidio9]

The belong there. People hate them. That doesn't mean they don't belong there. They're part of the ecosystem. . I have never understood the virulent hatred people have for wolves while simultaneously fawning over dusgusting and much more destrctive coyotes.

As has been pointed out before on this site, man's affection for large predators tends to develop inversely proportional relationship to his proximity to large predators.

[Blzbba]

"The belong there. People hate them. That doesn't mean they don't belong there. They're part of the ecosystem. . I have never understood the virulent hatred people have for wolves while simultaneously fawning over dusgusting and much more destrctive coyotes."


Total agreement. I'd add a lack of understanding of how many people fawn (no pun) over the extremely destructive white-tailed deer, which causes more property damage and loss of life yearly in America than any other animal.

[sergeantdave]

Biologists report that the Yellowstone National Park wolf packs are killing America’s wildlife in unprecedented numbers.

Prior to wolf introduction in 1995, 19,500 elk in the great northern Yellowstone elk herd and more than 300 big horn sheep lived in the ten square miles around Gardiner, Montana, along with abundant moose, antelope and mule deer.

Montana state moose biologist Kurt Alt said that the moose are all but wiped out. The National Academy of Science in its March, 2002, report announced that the antelope population is a small fraction of what it was. A Montana Game Warden north of Yellowstone Park warns that the mule deer population is in serious trouble.

The study supports wildlife researchers from other areas who report that wolf packs are relentlessly wiping out game herds.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Wolf Project Coordinator admits there are 560 wolves and 150 pups this year in the Yellowstone area, with anywhere between 34 to 46 breeding pairs, depending on your definition of breeding pair. The Project Coordinator himself, Ed Bangs, says, “There are too many wolves.”

Wolf reintroduction is now a big business. Defenders of Wildlife alone raises over $16,000,000 a year tax-free. They beg for dollars through mass mailings to urban soccer moms, who are kept in the dark by socialist sycophants in the press. Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado are next to get a good healthy dose of eco-death by wolves.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has amassed a huge bureaucracy originally formed to introduce 78-100 wolves in Yellowstone Park. It’s now expanded its mission to plant wolves into any rural area in America where there is an agricultural or hunting culture. Reintroduction is usually done without the permission of the state or local communities, a violation of various congressional mandates.

An all-star team of 15 scientists with doctorate degrees, specializing in Predator/Prey biology, studied and then published in 1991 “Wolves for Yellowstone? A Report to Congress and the Department of Interior.”

They warned that the 250 square miles in and around Yellowstone could hold 78-100 wolves at full capacity, if it was done over a 10 to 20 year period. No one knew the impact of predators on an unadapted prey species - elk, moose and bighorn sheep. They said that “intensive monitoring of the prey should be done, otherwise the Yellowstone Ecosystem would be forever and irreparably harmed.” (See P. 11 Peterson, Gassaway & Messier report to Department of Interior, dated 9/95).

[danmar]

Now if only the caldera doesn't explode...

...nah!..they gave it another million years or so, before going off.

[r9etb]

Pretty good story, and rather well-balanced, too.

[narby]

I have never understood the virulent hatred people have for wolves while simultaneously fawning over dusgusting and much more destrctive coyotes.

Because the environmental nazis are introducing them to eastern Arizona and Western New Mexico. And to protect the precious creatures from dangerous "encounters with humans", they've locked up public land in huge chunks.

That's the underlying adgenda of these people, to de-populate the west, and empty it completly of people.

They don't really give a d@mn about the wolves.

[ko_kyi]

Interesting post. As a person who enjoys the outdoors, isn't predation to extinction almost unheard of? (rats and dodo birds notwithstanding.) I would think that the number of wolves would depend on the availability of prey, but prey species reproduce and adapt quickly and should end up at a smaller but stable level in a few years.

Have the herds totally lost their self-preservation skills? If so, they should be considered domesticated animals and not wildlife.

[r9etb]

nah!..they gave it another million years or so, before going off.

Plus or minus a million.....

[presidio9]

Have the herds totally lost their self-preservation skills? If so, they should be considered domesticated animals and not wildlife.

What an interesting philosophical point! But if they are truely domesticated, don't we then have some sort of "good husbandry obligation" to defend one domesticated species from a newly introduced ones? You don't let your cat eat your parakeet, do you?

[sergeantdave]

This is why scientists recommended a gradual re-introduction of the wolf, so the matter could be studied.

Regardless of what people think of wolf re-introduction there are consequences. Consider -

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources told the federal government that the state could maybe handle 100 to 150 wolves. So, naturally, the number is now in excess of 300 and there’s trouble in Dairyland with no solution in sight.

Milwaukee Journal reporter Dan Egan wrote that farmers are finding “calves with their hindquarters shredded, still alive and trying to suckle. They have stumbled upon a pregnant cow ripped open and her fetus torn out. They have seen calves with crushed throats - dead without losing a drop of blood. Killed, they believe, simply for the thrill.”

Children can’t walk in the woods alone and adults must carry weapons.

Beef cattle ranchers raising stock in northwestern Wisconsin say wolf raids cost them 92 calves last year. They expect more this year when the tally is taken.

These farmers are cussing mad. They, as their ranching compatriots out west, believe they and their livelihood have been targeted by eco-extremists and their allies.

The Wisconsin DNR, the farmers and hunters all agree the packs should be culled. But the Washington DC legislators fiddle in Rome, chase interns and refuse to manage the timber wolf.

The result? Last year the Wisconsin DNR buried 15 wolves, culled by shoot, shovel and shut-up.

Upper Michigan is believed to carry the same number of wolves as Wisconsin. Last year six grey wolves were shot in the UP.

The killing goes on in spite of shooters facing a $100,000 fine and six months in jail for culling an endangered wolf.

“It’s way beyond time” to begin killing problem wolves in Wisconsin, said David Mech in the Milwaukee Journal story. Mech is a senior research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey and one of the world’s foremost authorities on North America’s wolves.

Mech fears that if the wolves aren’t delisted and managed, the public backlash could grow. “I worry,” said Mech.